From Russia with Love (1963)

James Bond willingly falls into an assassination ploy involving a naive Russian beauty in order to retrieve a Soviet encryption device that was stolen by SPECTRE.

Director:

Terence Young

Writers:

Richard Maibaum (screenplay), Johanna Harwood (adaptation),

Stars:

Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya

Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sean Connery	...	James Bond
Daniela Bianchi	...	Tatiana Romanova
Pedro Armendáriz	...	Kerim Bey (as Pedro Armendariz)
Lotte Lenya	...	Rosa Klebb
Robert Shaw	...	Grant
Bernard Lee	...	M
Eunice Gayson	...	Sylvia Trench
Walter Gotell	...	Morzeny
Francis De Wolff	...	Vavra (as Francis de Wolff)
George Pastell	...	Train Conductor
Nadja Regin	...	Kerim's Girl
Lois Maxwell	...	Miss Moneypenny
Aliza Gur	...	Vida
Martine Beswick	...	Zora (as Martin Beswick)
Vladek Sheybal	...	Kronsteen

Storyline

James Bond 007 is on the search for a Russian decoding machine, known as Lektor. Bond needs to find this machine, before the evil SPECTRE organization discovers it first. Whilst being romantically linked with Russian girl, Tatiana Romanova, Bond sneaks his way around Istanbul, whilst each SPECTRE agent tries to pick him off, including the over powering Donald 'Red' Grant and ex-KGB agent Rosa Klebb who knows all the tricks in the books and even possesses an incredible poison tipped shoe!

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Plot Keywords:

spectre | russian | decoder | kgb | british secret service | 

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Taglines:

VIVA James Bond !

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Thriller

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English Russian Turkish Romany

Release Date:

27 May 1964 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bons baisers de Russie

Filming Locations:

"The Canals", Venice, Veneto, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$24,800,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Eon Productions, Danjaq

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (as Colour by) (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Location manager William Hill was forced to play the role of the real Captain Nash when the actor hired for the role couldn't make it at the last minute.

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Goofs

After Bond dumps the oil drums into the water he fires two shots from of the single-shot flare gun but doesn't stop to reload in between.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Morzeny: [after Grant kills a look-a-like Bond] Exactly one minute, fifty-two seconds. That's excellent.

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Crazy Credits

"THE END" "NOT QUITE THE END" JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN THE NEXT IAN FLEMING THRILLER "GOLDFINGER"

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Connections

Referenced in Crackerjack (2002)

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Soundtracks

"From Russia With Love"
Title song written by Lionel Bart
Sung by Matt Monro
Music Conducted by Johnnie Spence

User Reviews

Best of the Bonds?

The first three Bonds (Dr. No, FRWL, Goldfinger) are without question the best in the series, though From Russia with Love may well be the best of the best. It has all things we look for in a great Bond film - exotic locales, sinister villains, beautiful women - but it was made before Goldfinger established the ingenious-yet-demented-supervillain-plus-indestructible-henchman formula as canonical, so its plot line may surprise viewers reared on the later Bond films. For one thing, there's little or nothing in the way of gadgetry (though Q does provide our hero with a pretty nifty briefcase). Beyond a brief encounter with the faceless Number One, there's no arch-villain looming over the action, and the henchmen are at once less invulnerable and more interesting than most of their successors in the series. Particularly memorable, of course, are Lotte Lenya as the hatchet-faced Colonel ("She's had her kicks") Kleb and Robert Shaw as the brutish Donald "Red" Grant. Kleb's edgy menace is neatly offset by her terror at the prospect of failure (an option which Number One refuses to countenance); her subtle come-on to Tatiana Romanova was positively daring by 1963 standards, and she manages to do for footwear what Goldfinger's Odd Job went on to do for head gear. Grant is no superman, but a vicious, small-time thug, recruited by SPECTRE and transformed into a fearsome enforcer; his bitter encounter with Bond on the train speaks volumes about the class tensions that still underlay British society in the post-war era.

Connery, for his part, gets to build on the character he first fleshed out in Dr. No. His Bond really emerges here as a complex man, formidable but flawed. He's genteel and sophisticated, but he doesn't always keep his cool; unlike the too-often unflappable Roger Moore, Connery's Bond betrays both anger and fear when the circumstances seem to warrant it. He intervenes chivalrously to stop a fight between two Gypsy women, but he's not above slugging a woman in the service of his mission. I've always enjoyed the humanizing chemistry between Connery and Pedro Armendariz's larger-than-life Kerim ("I've led a fascinating life") Bey, the most charming of Bond sidekicks; their friendship comes across as genuine and multi-dimensional. Today's viewers (especially women) will likely find Daniela Bianchi's Tanya ("I LOVE you, James") Romanova an uncomfortably passive damsel-in-distress, but, hey: she's drop-dead gorgeous and has some nice scenes with Connery. The Turkish and Balkan settings are spectacular and the train sequence at the end is both exciting and suspenseful. Cold War scenario notwithstanding, this one has aged very well. Shake yourself a pitcher of vodka martinis and spend a Friday night watching Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.